Against Politics

Toward a depoliticized society

Thomas Sowell on the poisonous doctrine of ‘empathy’

Thomas Sowell writes:

If you were going to have open-heart surgery, would you want to be operated on by a surgeon who was chosen because he had to struggle to get where he is, or by the best surgeon you could find — even if he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and [...]

Counter-modernism

In my review of Jonathan Bowden’s book Mad I  discussed the possibility of “a unique and coherent Nietzschean/Lovecraftian worldview that is strictly positivist in its epistemology, and  distinctly reactionary in its rejection of egalitarianism and democracy, as an alternative to socialism, (classical) liberalism and contemporary conservatism.” Interestingly, Samuel Francis made a related observation in his [...]

Jonathan Bowden’s Mad

From the publisher who brought us a new and expanded edition of L.A. Rollins’ excellent “The Myth of Natural Rights” comes  a rare little book by Jonathan Bowden called “Mad.” The book was originally published in 1989 but I have not been able to find much information about it. Before publication Nine-Banded Books announced it [...]

Look, I am against torture!

Do people who believe that torture is wrong under all circumstances arrive at this conclusion after a painstaking analysis of all the scenarios in which torture might be the only choice to avoid individual or collective catastrophe? Or is it just another way of signaling to the rest of the world that you  are on [...]

A new political addiction

When Arthur Koestler wrote:
Those who were caught in the great illusion of our time, and have lived through its moral and intellectual debauch, either give themselves up to a new addiction of the opposite type…
he must have anticipated the career of David Horowitz and other neoconservatives.

The war against savers

In the Middle Ages, they threw people who failed to repay their debts into debtors’ prisons. Today debtors are rewarded with all kinds of government perks. Look how far we’ve come!
Caroline Baum – Inflation ‘Cure’ Exposed When In-Laws Move In

Undercover at Wal-Mart

The New York Post recently posted an interesting personal account of writer and cryonics activist Charles Platt about working conditions and company policies at Wal-Mart. In Platt’s own words:
Some people, usually community activists, loath Wal-Mart. Others, like the family of four struggling to make ends meet, are in love with the chain. I, meanwhile, am [...]

Classical liberalism without philosophy

In a blog post for the New Republic Alan Wolfe writes: “What my critics call modern liberalism is instead the logical and sociological outcome of classical liberalism.” He further writes in another blog post that “A liberal society, I believe, is one that allows room for free markets, but also allows room for many other [...]

A reactionary lady novelist

Before Ayn Rand there was Isabel Paterson.

“Paterson (1886-1961) was a novelist and literary critic. She was slight, just over five feet tall, with a delicate taste in food and drink, a deep love of nature, and a nationally famous sense of humor. Stubborn and sharp-witted, she was also one of the New Deal’s fiercest foes. [...]